Undignified
by Deinde
Summary: Before Jenova, before Shinra, Hojo was a lab assistant at a small genetics company.
1. Chapter 1

Undignified

Hojo scowled as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other. The squat position he was stuck in was not comfortable.

"Gaia, this sucks." He thought, scrub brush in hand.

He was drenched in a god awful mixture of poop, urine, pine sol, and year-old semen and embryonic fluid. They had failed to mention conditions such as these in the pamphlets on becoming a geneticist.

As he scrubbed the crisscrossing grate that made up one side of the cage, the dirty, awful water flew in little darts in all directions.

Eight years of med school so that he could do this? Scrub an old cage for a pregnant mammal to give birth in? Hojo wasn't even certain why they needed lab assistants to do this. He failed to see how cleaning a cage required a Genetics degree.

The company he had ended up working at wasn't even in his field of interest. They did genetic manipulation for breeding of the Equus, a rare type of mammal that the people on the far side of Wutai favored as pets. Hojo wanted to work on the genetic improvement of the human race!

He splashed the scrub brush back into the bucket of water. The water was so dirty that he was sure at this point he was just spreading the dirt around the cage, but he didn't feel like going to dump the heavy bucket and refilling it. The baby eqqus could die for all he cared.

It was hard work, harder than it looked, to scrub the twelve by twelve cage's grated walls. It was hard to get the round, crisscrossing steel bars any semblance of clean, especially with a year's worth of crap on it. And as he opened his mouth to take a deeper breath, one of the sprays flew into his mouth.

"Gah!" Hojo spit rapidly. Damnit, why couldn't this part of his life hurry up.

He stood and grabbed the pitchfork, pulling the shavings away from the next section of stall he had to scrub.

"You have to start at the bottom and work your way up." His carrier counselor had said.

"I don't want to work my way up, I want to work on Genetics! I want to be in a lab." Hojo growled under his breath. A lab where he could call the shots and have his own lab assistants to do this crap.

He kneeled back down and went back to scrubbing. Suddenly the Equus in the next stall shifted, raised it tail, and farted right in his face.

"Gaia, this sucks."

* * *

Had a really sucky day at work and decided to make Hojo have it. The sad thing was that the scrubbing of the nasty horse stall was the least horrible part of the day. I really don't get paid enough for my job (I am a stable hand at a breeding barn), especially since my boss tends to gyp me.

This did not come out as well as I had hoped, by the time I got home, showered and to writing this, the wording I came up with at work was gone.

This may or may not end up being a series. I certainly have many more scenarios to torture Hojo with! ( most of which I have experienced) I guess it depends on the responce I get.

If you enjoyed, please review! I am still very new at this and appreciate any helpful critiques I get!


	2. Iodine

Iodine

_Tincture of iodine (10 elemental iodine in ethanol base) is an essential component of any emergency survival kit, used both to disinfect wounds and to sanitize surface water for drinking (3 drops per litre, let stand for 30 minutes). Alcohol-free iodine solutions such as Lugol's iodine, as well as other iodophor type antiseptics, are also available as effective elemental iodine sources for this purpose._

That is what Hojo's book from undergrad school had said about Iodine.

What it had failed to mention was that Iodine was the personification of evil.

It failed to mention that is stank like someone had burnt sulfur and then tried to cover the smell with bad air-freshener. It failed to mention that NOTHING was capable of removing the stuff from anything; including skin and that it stung like hell.

Hojo knew all this because at the moment his entire left leg was drenched in the stuff and he could feel it removing the outer layers of his skin.

Biting his lip he hunkered down more, trying to wrap his arms more firmly around the little Equus who the iodine was supposed to be on. However as soon as they started putting the stuff into his defective umbilicus, the brat had started thrashing, thus covering Hojo with Iodine. It wasn't his fault the brat's umbilicus never fully healed and had to be cauterized!

The other lab technician cursed as he refilled the syringe with the remainder of the vile stuff. They better be quick, Hojo noted, the Iodine had almost completely eaten through the Styrofoam cup. He didn't thing anything could destroy Styrofoam.

The tech quickly shot the iodine into the newly cauterized umbilicus and they both shot out of the stall as the baby began to kick and thrash.

The tech looked at Hojo and smiled with a wince, "you're gonna want to go clean up a bit. I have a spare set of pants in my car."

Hojo sighed and nodded, the other man dashing to go get the mentioned pants as he waddled over to the port-a-loo, not wanting to spread the stuff around.

He only got about halfway down the aisle, however, before the Iodine soaked through his underwear and started to burn in a _very_ painful place, flooring him. he rolled over cupping the tender burning flesh.

He hated Iodine.

* * *

I hate Iodine. This really happened, though I was the second Lab Technician, not Hojo in the real version. My poor coworker...

Anyway, I am working on a separate story that will follow Hojo's rise through the ranks. Right now I am just waiting for some requested research to come back, so I should have the first chapter in a week or so. If anyone would be willing to Beta it, let me know!


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